


a Superstar

by queerofcups



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Nanny, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 20:06:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15420597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofcups/pseuds/queerofcups
Summary: Phil is a former child actor, with a kid and a not-so-mysterious past. Dan's a nanny, desperately trying to retire. They fall in love, y'know, eventually.





	a Superstar

There’s a baby squirrel outside, chittering on the balcony of his new flat.

He’d noticed it while he was making lunch, an hour ago. He’d finished putting together the mishmash of leftovers and sat down on the couch, pretending to watch something on his laptop, glancing over at the squirrel every few minutes.

Dan knows, he knows that he shouldn’t touch it, that it’ll get his scent on it and if...when it's mother returns, it might make her hesitant to claim her kid. But it's tiny and spindly and Dan’s certain if he listens hard he can hear it mewling. And he’s not certain if pigeons eat meat but he’s had to clear a raven away at least once and he’s nearly positive those bastards have never said no to a free meal.

He’s nibbling on the edge of a piece of toast, feeling the last bits of his resolve crumble when his computer dings with a notification--a new email.

He glances over at the squirrel, watches it skitter to the edges of the glass door, nearly out of sight, before he opens the email.

It's two emails, actually. One is expected. It's a confirmation of a couple of auditions. None of them are anything huge, side characters in a few stage productions, a commercial or two, just to diversify his portfolio. The auditions come easier now, when there’s a little reminder of who he works for. Who he used to work for.

The other email is unexpected, but from a familiar address. Dan stares at Bryony’s name, then looks up at his blank television. His flat is nice, decorated by one of those designers celebrities love but never credit when they let photographers into their homes. The decorator, and the flat, was a parting gift from his last family. He could have bought it on his own with the three years of generous checks that he’d squirreled away in anticipation of leaving, but they’d insisted and he’d learned better than to argue.

This room, a spacious den with huge windows, is a shade of grey that somehow manages to be warm and classy, the accents are modern, matte black and touches of silver. Altogether, the whole thing looks expensive. His last family had loved things that looked expensive. Including him.

But he’d loved the kids and had genuinely come to feel like, if not a member of the family, a close friend, the kind you can’t get rid of because they know all your secrets.

He shuts his laptop, Bryony’s email unopened and glances out of the window. The squirrel is gone, or at least out of sight of the door. He makes himself keep sitting. It hasn’t been a full week since he stopped being a caretaker, he hasn’t sunken to thrusting his paternal instincts onto wild animals yet.

Not that there was a lot of difference between a toddler having a tantrum and a frightened squirrel, he thinks to himself.

The mother of his family would have guffawed at that little aside. The father’s mouth would have thinned out into a harsh, pale pink line.

Sarcasm, Dan had been told exactly once, isn’t really befitting of a family of our status.

Nevermind that they were such new money they barely saw their own extended family for fear of embarrassment. Nevermind the wife’s barbed tongue when she drank to excess, a regular occurence.

Nevermind the way the husband gave Dan long, considering looks, like he was just waiting for an opportunity to get Dan alone. Nevermind the times he did.

The kids were sweet, and he’d stayed as long as he did for a reason, but now, alone in a quiet, modestly sized space that was his, he felt ecstatic. Or. At least that’s the feeling he was expecting to come, at any moment. He’d woken up naturally, wanked without surreptition or interruption, showered without a thought of what the rest of the day needed to look like and now he was here. Just barely stopping himself from wetnursing an orphaned rodent.

He gets up and heads to his bedroom to grab the script he’d been reading over. Things are fine. He’s been a caretaker for the majority of his adult life. It makes sense that he’s having a bit of an adjustment period. It doesn’t mean that leaving is, by any means, the wrong decision.

There’s a scratching noise at the windowed doors of his balcony, but he doesn’t allow himself to look back at it.

 

“I miss the little bastards,” Dan says, like it's been dragged out of him. He groans and drops his head to the table and lets the little group around him laugh at him gently. There are four of them all together, a mix of caretakers who all worked at Dan’s agency. His former agency. They’re basically the only friends he has now and seeing them more than twice a month is a rare treat.

“Darling,” Fatima says, taking a drag off her cigarette while Dan takes a moment to lift his head off the table. “You decided to leave them, no? You decided to leave us. You could have them back.”

Dan watches her exhale smoke and push her dark hair out of her dark eyes. She’s terribly gorgeous, a second generation French-Morrocan woman slightly older than him, a former proper au pair before she’d joined Crystal Cloud Childcare Agencies. Dan loves her almost as much as he envies her and she’s his best friend out of their little polished rag tag group. When she speaks, Joe and Caspar, the two unlikeliest nannies Dan has ever met, fade into the background.

“I can’t,” Dan argues, taking another sip of his wine. “They don’t want me, and I don’t want to go back to them. I don’t want another family. I just miss them.”

Fatima tuts, and, with a little wicked look in her eye, shrugs. “I can hardly blame them. You dress yourself like a pauper and treat proper posture like an evil ex.”

Dan looks down at his sweater, a holiday present from his old family that had cost the equivalent of two of his paychecks, and reminds himself that Fatima’s current family is distant European royalty. Her family has been rich so long it doesn’t occur to them that the world won’t bend to their whims, and it’s Fatima’s job to anticipate desires they hadn’t even had yet. Of course his jumper is too poor for her.

“Mate,” Joe says, clapping him on the back, “Ignore her and her richy-rich shite. You were good enough for your old family for years, weren’t ya?”

Dan’s still looking at Fatima, so he catches the unbecoming grimace that crosses her face, an expression that always seems to appear whenever Joe or Caspar speak. Dan can’t entirely blame her. They’re a different breed of caretaker, hyperspecific. Both of them work for footballers with wandering eyes and roving hands, masculine enough to put the mother’s concern for her husband’s fidelity at ease and gentle without being “coddling”, perfect for a footballer’s son. So very masc.

If they weren’t both gay as larks, Dan would have submitted to Fatima’s demand that they find new friends years ago.

“I was acceptable,” Dan says, taking a larger drink of wine. It's his third, but they’re drinking white wine, because Fatima would die before running the risk of her perfect mouth and perfect, eerily straight, teeth getting wine stained. Dan’s beginning to wish he’d gotten a pint like Caspar and Joe. God. So fucking masc.

“Acceptable?” Fatima asks, trying so very hard to sound uninterested. Like she isn’t a shark smelling blood in the water when it comes to gossip.

“Acceptable,” Dan repeats bitterly. “Acceptable! Like I didn’t wake up two hours before the family every morning to prepare for the kids’ day, like I didn’t fucking well teach their youngest to walk. The only fucking thing I didn’t do was spread my legs for the father, which probably would have gotten me a bit of a pay raise at least.”

Fatima hisses and Dan shuts his mouth. Caspar and Joe exchange looks in her peripheral.

Dan takes a breath and finishes his wine, turning to try and catch the eye of the server who’d been attending to them. The server is there, staring at Fatima. Who’s to say if he’s staring because she’s technically not allowed to be smoking on the balcony of the rather swank little cafe or if he’s going to try to chat her up.

Judging from the way he snaps into movement, bringing Dan another glass of wine and asking everyone else if they’re doing fine, even while he stares at Fatima, it's the latter.

When the server leaves, the tension still sits between them.

“I’m not part of this thing anymore, Fats,” Dan says, gesturing at the three of them. “I don’t have to pretend like it doesn’t happen.”

“Don’t fucking call me that,” Fatima says. He’s never quite got a handle on sounding so proper while cursing.

They stare at each other until Caspar clears his throat.

“Are you two finally going to fuck, then? Take all that tension and work it out? It does wonders, worked fine between Suggs and I.”

“Suggs and me,” Fatima and Dan say at the same time.

Caspar groans and it's the release of a pressure valve. Fatima doesn’t quite relax but her eyes get a little less hard. Dan stares at the table. The server brings his fresh glass of wine.

“I have auditions,” He finally says. “Next week.”

Joe and Capsar make supportive, interested noises. Fatima nods once and ashes her cigarette off the banister, probably onto someone’s very expensive blow out. Dan grins at her.

“They’re nothing big,” he tells all of them, “I’m not ready to go big yet, I--”

His phone rings. It’s face up, so they all see. Joe whistles, short and low.   
“You tell us over and over you’re done,” Fatima says, eyebrow arched, “And then you get a call from the grand-mère. Interesting.”

“She’d kill you if she knew you called her that,” Dan says, grabbing his phone and his glass of wine and heading for a less crowded area of the balcony.

“Bryony, hi,” he answers, trying not to sound like he’s a little tipsy and more than a little terrified.   
He’s only had a few calls from Bryony over the last six years. She’s the principal of the agency he works from and people typically only talk to her when things have gone very, very wrong. The first and only time a family broke their contract with Dan, she’d been the one to call and tell him to pack up his things.

But that couldn’t be why she’s calling. She can’t fire him. He’d turned in his notice a week and a half ago. He barely works for her anymore. Gooseflesh still raises on his arms when she speaks.

“Dan,” she says, friendly, “You didn’t respond to my email. I have a job for you.”

He blinks and stares down into his wine. It’s a chardonnay, the soft yellow shivers in the glass. Dan realises his hands are shaking.

“Um,” he says and makes a face. One of his families once complained about how often he’d prevaricate. “Did you not receive my notice? I’m certain I sent it to you. And cc’d HR. Oh god, Bryony, no one told you?”

“You sent it,” Bryony said. “I’m fairly certain I responded. It’s a short stay. Ten months at most.”

  
She had responded. Something about appreciating his service and being sad to see him go. Dan had assumed her assistant wrote it.

“Bryony,” Dan says slowly, “I don’t work for the agency anymore.”

There’s silence and then a long sigh. Dan’s anxiety spikes and his stomach turns. Maybe he’s seen too many films about the mafia but Bryony’s sigh makes him think he’s going to wake up to the head of some poor, decapitated animal tomorrow morning. Probably that poor baby squirrel.

“Dan, I’m asking for a favor,” she says it with difficulty, like she’s not used to having to ask people things, rather than them just snapping to her command. Actually that’s probably accurate.

“I’m personally close with this family and they’ve had a hard time of it, the last few years, and they’re only now getting back on their feet. They’re more than capable of paying your fee, and you’re welcome to charge more than normal, as you’re technically...retired.”

Bryony is only a few years older than him, and has managed to build up one of the most well known agencies in luxury child care. People whisper her name, and she commands so much respect without a single frown. A favour from her, to have her in your debt, was like a guarantee of never going without a job.

But he has auditions next week, a nice flat that’s his and his alone, a place to wank and think and make his own schedule. The first week was hard, of course, but he has to learn independence somehow.

“We can do a chemistry check,” Dan says, and takes a long sip of wine.

Bryony makes a small, amused hmph noise, and Dan thinks she might be impressed with him.

“I’ll send out calendar invites,” she says, and hangs up without saying goodbye.

Dan rolls his eyes and turns back to his table, and meeting three pair of curious eyes.

  
*

Phil looks down at his latte. The barista had drawn a little bear face in it. He focuses on that, trying not to let his feelings show on his own face.

“You really don’t think I can do it on my own?” he asks, looking up from the little foam bear to Kath.

She frowns, pressing her hand to her mouth in that way she has, clearly thinking.

  
“Dear boy,” she says finally, “Child.”

There aren’t many things his mother has told him he can’t do in life, but he knows she’s about to tell him so now.

“It’s hard enough when you’re not working, to do it alone,” she laughs a little, like she can’t believe he’d be so hard-headed. “Now you’re thinking of moving across the ocean, to a new country. Long days and a completely new environment? It doesn’t have anything to do with you, dear. It’s just too much for one person.”

Phil sighs and looks over at the small play area of the park nestled up against the small bistro, searching out for a head of curly brown hair in the crowd of children shrieking in play. He finds her immediately. She stands out, most of the other kids are still wintertime pale but she’s nut brown, half a head taller than most of her playmates and triumphant as she breaks away from the pack in the strange running game they’re playing. That’s her, his girl.

“Sophie is sensitive,” his mum says, “Of course she is! Parents never married, mother...gone. She’s not going to have an normal life, Phil, and that means she needs a little extra care.

Phil had emailed Bryony two nights ago, was waiting back for the time and place of a first meeting with a potential nanny. The knowledge burns in his chest, he’s going to tell his mum. Except he bristles at her phrasing and it makes him hold his tongue. Sophie’s mother isn’t gone. That makes it sound like she’s just up and decided she didn’t want either of them anymore. And if she was here, there was zero guarantee that she’d marry Phil. There are few things Phil knows better than he knows...knew Margaux’s disdain for any sort of restraint or limitation.

“Fine,” Phil says. It’s too cold, he’s overcalculated and now Kath probably knows she’s hurt him. But they can’t say anything more because Sophie is barrelling toward the two of them, already talking about how she’d won, she’d won the game the kids were playing. It's a brief flash of childish delight, the kind that Phil gets to see less and less as she grows. He thinks about her soon approaching birthday. Twelve, dear god, and thirteen after that. Then fourteen and fifteen and sixteen.

When Phil was fifteen, he was saying yes to his first stint on television. When he seventeen he was in his first movie. And by nineteen, he was entering retirement.

It’s laughable now, just on the other side of thirty, to think about himself fifteen years ago, on the edge of a life he’d never conceived of.

“Now that I’ve beat those babies,” Sophie says, “Can I have a latte?”

“Sophie,” Kath says, her tone a little reproving. “That’s not very nice, how would you like it if we called you a baby?”

Phil, who is certainly not acting out because his mother was honest with him, ignores her and says, “No, it’ll stunt your growth. You can have a sip of mine, though.”  
Kath makes a noise, the kind that says that she has opinions about giving an eleven year old caffeine, but she’s keeping it to herself.

Sophie takes a sip of his drink and doesn’t even blink. Phil doesn’t think too hard about the fact that he has the coffee tastes of an eleven year old.

“Mm!” Sophie says, her eyes wide in exaggeration. “Now I’m definitely going to win the next race!”  
She’s gone again before either of them can say something about playing nicely.  
“Sensitive,” Phil repeats, laughing a little.   
“She is, Phil!” Kath says. Her hand is fluttering now, touching her necklace, her earrings. The way it does when she’s upset but doesn’t want to admit it. They’re too much alike in their refusal to admit anything other than good feelings. “You have to be careful with children, even when they don’t seem that delicate.”

There’s a small, bitter part of Phil that he tries to keep behind doors and bars that wonders why no one was careful with him. But they’ve had that conversation, and gone around and around and he knows that there’s no satisfying answer to the question of why his parents allowed him into the spotlight and never bothered to pull him away from the scrutiny of the public.

Instead, he says, “I called an agency. We’re doing a chemistry match with a nanny next week.”

“Oh,” Kath says, her hand finally resting in her lap. “Well why didn’t you just say that to begin with?”  
Phil shrugs and lets the conversation die, asking her if she’s talked to Martyn this week.

  
Phil’s professional name is Philip Michael. In all his fifteen year old wisdom, he’d thought it sounded more mature and cool than Phil Lester. He’d told Margaux that the first day he met her, when she told him that he looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite figure out where she knew him from.

She’d occasionally, fondly, call him “that bloke from telly” up until the day she died. It rankled him sometime, the idea that he couldn’t get away from his stint in film and television, not even with his...with his Margaux. Though it had sounded funny in her American accent.

She’d taken it all in stride, the knowledge that he’d been sort of famous once, the fact that he’d left the spotlight after he was caught leaving a gay bar with another man attached to his mouth, just after his eighteenth birthday.

She goes with it when he tells her he’s gay, but still falls in bed with her, again and again. She goes with it Sophie is born. Phil likes to think she would have gone with it when Manon Sophia Ange Siméon Lester becomes just Sophie Lester to everyone but her closest family

But no one blinks twice at Sophie Lester. No one asks if she’s related to a former child star. People’s eyes skip right over her to look at him, to try and figure out where they know him from and why he’s with this little girl. Every day, he thanks his fifteen year old self for the gift of anonymity, the best thing he could give his daughter.

*

“You’re freaking out,” Fatima says flatly in his ear. “Why are you freaking out? This is what, your millionth chemistry check?”

Dan rolls his eyes and checks that it's safe to cross the street. “You know I’m only twenty seven, right? And started working at eighteen, which is normal? This is my fourth chemistry check. Ever. I’m allowed to freak out.”

Distantly, Dan can hear children talking, more than normal.

“Are you working?” Dan asks back and finally crosses the street, approaching the pâtisserie Dan had been sent to. “Shouldn’t you be watching children?”

He prefers to do chemistry checks in the family’s home, but maybe this is a famous person quirk. Most of his families have been new money, but never this kind of famous. He’s cared for the children of tech people, a few investors who got very, very lucky. But if there’s a chance of paparazzi, he can understand not wanting to invite someone to your house, no matter how many times Dan’s been vetted.

Not that any of it matters. He’s already decided to say no. He’d drank well into the evening with Fatima, Joe and Caspar and they’d gone round and round until he decided that he doesn’t want to return to this kind of work. Probably.

Fatima makes a dismissive sound. “It’s a playdate, they’re entertaining themselves. You aren’t there yet?”

“I’m here,” Dan confirms. “Drinks tomorrow night? Somewhere that serves actual liquor, this time.”

“Fine. Lush,” Fatima sighs. “I suppose you want the Doublemint Twins to be there as well?”

“Fats,” Dan says, ignoring her noise of displeasure, “Your obsession with referring to them as brothers is weird, you know that, right?”

“Don’t call me that you,” Fatima lowers her voice, “You fucker.”

Dan gasps, dramatic, “Did you just curse in front of your wards, Fatima? I am shocked.”

She hangs up on him.

Dan laughs to himself as he slips his phone into his back pocket. Since he’d already decided he wasn’t going to take the job, he hadn’t dressed quite to normal chemistry check standards. He’d thrown on one of his nicer shirts, another one from his time with his last family, but paired it with a pair of, still expensive, distressed and ripped black jeans and his hair curly and teased higher than normal.

He walks into the pâtisserie and looks around. There’s only one child her, a little girl with dark afro puffs on either side of her head, but she’s sitting with an older woman. Bryony had made it clear that Dan would be meeting with a man, Phil Lester and his daughter.

He looks around, trying to see if there’s other seating that he hadn’t noticed, and when he looks back, the little girl is watching him, a little frown on her face. He waves at her and she makes a gesture, like he should come over. It’s odd, but he moves anyway.

“Are you the new au pair?” she asks as soon as he gets within hearing distance. “Daniel?”

Huh, that’s interesting. Dan nods, not bothering to explain that no, he technically isn’t an au pair. That’s probably just a word she’d learned recently.

“I am. I’m Dan. Are you Sophie?”

She nods and extends her hand. It’s tiny, Dan figures she’s somewhere in the ten to twelve range from her size. He shakes her hand and then turns to the older woman to shake her hand as well.

“Mrs. Lester,” Dan says, tilting his voice up just a bit into a question. The woman shakes her head.

“I’m Eloise,” she says, shaking Dan’s hand.

“She’s not my mom,” Sophie says, “She’s a babysitter. My dad’s coming. He’s stuck in traffic and didn’t want to be late and he says that it makes the most sense for you to meet me even if he’s not here yet. We live over there.”

She starts to point in a direction and Eloise smoothly grabs her hand, twining their fingers together.

Mon cher,” Eloise says, “What have we said about telling strangers where we live?”  
Sophie tugs her hand away and Dan catches Eloise frowning at her before she smooths it over with a placid smile. Okay.  
“We live nearby,” Sophie says, starting again, and she seems strangely older now, more subdued. Definitely the younger side of twelve. “So we just walked here. But he should be here soon. Also my name isn’t really Sophie. It’s Sophia.”

“Ok,” Dan says, pausing a moment to go steal a chair from one of the empty tables. “Do you prefer to be called Sophie or Sophia.”

Sophie shrugs. “People call me lots of things. Eloise calls me Sophia. I have a lot of names, but around here people just call me Sophie Lester. I think they think the other ones are weird.”

“Weird?” Dan asks. So far, she’s like every other ten to twelve year old he’s ever met, talkative, ready to dive deep into whatever subject they find interesting at the moment.

Sophie nods. “They’re mostly French. Except my other last name.”

  
Objectively, Dan shouldn’t be encouraging this kid to tell complete strangers her whole name, but he just nods and she goes on.

  
“So people call me Sophie,” she says, “But my mom was Creole, and French. So she named me Manon Sophia Ange. And my name was her last name, Simeon, until I got my dad’s last name, too, a few years ago.”

Dan’s about to gently encourage her to say more, except Eloise is going a little manic around the eyes with wanting to interrupt Sophie/a. It doesn’t matter though, the bell dings and Sophie’s head turns and her eyes brighten, so Dan turns, too and his stomach does a weird twisting, burning thing because he knows this man.

Well.

He doesn’t.

Except in the way that everyone knew Philip Michael for a few years.  
In the way that he hated Philip Michael for a few years.

“Sorry,” Philip, Phil says, dragging yet another chair over. “Hi sweetie, PJ sends his love.”

He leans over to drop a kiss on Sophie’s head before turning to Dan. “I hope you’re not keeping score. Late parent has to be some kind of negative.”

Dan smiles and shakes his head, gears in his head whirring to figure out what’s happening here. It works, technically, for Sophie to be ten or eleven. It had been about that long ago that Philip Michael disappeared from the public eye. Except that he’d disappeared because he’d been outed and now there was a kid who was very obviously his, despite her brown skin and curly hair. She was long limbed like him and her face was nearly his face, except for a rounder nose and bushier eyebrows.

“It’s fine, I know about traffic.” Dan says, reaching over to shake his hand. “I’m Dan.”  
“And I’m off,” Eloise says politely, standing. “Now that you’re here. Sophia, I’ll see you tomorrow, yes?”

“Oui,” Sophie says and tucks into her chocolate drizzled croissant, clearly dismissing Eloise.

There was interesting, weird tension happening between them that Dan would be way more interested in if he weren’t doing a mental retrospective of all the times he’d argued with strangers online about Philip Michael.

People had loved him, but all Dan can remember is his trajectory--jumping acting rungs like that was his job, finding himself in roles Dan wouldn’t even dream of just because he was pretty enough and could deliver a line and kids loved him. And now he’s sitting in front of Dan, obviously monied despite ten years away from the work, with a kid that probably speaks two languages fluently, looking happy.

Dan doesn’t know what to do with the feeling in his chest. Philip Michael had been the first queer person around his age to come out publicly, not just through whispers and speculation and rumours on message boards, and he’d thrown away all the things he could have done, choosing to disappear.

Dan’s been out and proud for nearly as long as he’s known he wasn’t straight, has loved and lost plenty of role models, but Philip Michael is the fallen idol that he’s never gotten over.

“So, you got to meet Soph, hopefully she was polite,” Phil says, smiling over at her. His kid. How does he have a kid?

“I’m always polite,” Sophie argues. Dan doesn’t look at her but he does have to bite back a little smile. Phil doesn’t bother, rolling his eyes a little and flashing an amused look over at her. Dan likes that. He’s been with families that wanted their kids to just sit and be cute and quiet and made it clear that their flashes of personality weren’t acceptable.

  
“You’ve met my always polite, sometimes interrupting girl,” Phil says. “And Eloise. And I’m Phil. Again. Hi.”

“Hi,” Dan says back. “It's really good to meet both of you. Sophie here was telling me about all her names.”

“Ah,” Phil nods, “Her favorite subject. They’ve been doing family history at school, so she’s been perfecting her pronunciations. And her classmates.”

“Mrs. Caine wants us to talk about how important our names are and why we should say people’s names correctly,” Sophie says, fiddling with the paper bag her food came in. “She’s making us swap names and call people by our names to so we know how important they are.”

“Clearly Mrs. Caine is a movie fan,” Phil says dryly, quirking his eyebrow a little at the convoluted class practice.  
  
“I’m sure things will be fine. Just...peachy,” Dan says, not really thinking about what he’s said. When the words catch up to him he looks over in horror at Phil, who’s snickering.

“What?” Sophie says, looking between them. “I don’t get it, Dad, why are you laughing!”  
Phil’s turned blush pink with suppressed laughter while Sophie badgers him to explain the joke.

Eventually, Phil sends Sophie to the glass case of delicacies to buy him something, handing her a few pounds.

  
“We’re working on budgeting and learning how to pay for things,” Phil explains turning to Dan. “A few weeks ago she asked for a credit card. I don’t think she even knows what that is.”

“Probably not,” Dan says cheerily. “Can I just apologize for the completely inappropriate reference while talking about your kid’s school assignment?”

Phil shrugs, “She’s seen about five minutes of Call Me By Your Name. Just long enough to steal some snacks and call it boring. And I’ve got somewhere between a week and two years before I have to give the sex talk, not prepared for that at all, but having to explain how someone wanks with a peach would definitely make things more interesting for both of us.”

“More like horrifying,” Dan points out and Phil smiles so widely at him Dan thinks he might start laughing again.

“Anyway,” Phil says, “I’m not sure how much Bryony told you. But we’re looking at doing some short term moving, not quite a year. I’m going overseas, to America, to film some projects. It’d be about 9 months.”

  
Dan nods. America for nine months. Interesting.

“It would just be the three of us,” Phil says, glancing over at Sophie. “Plus a tutor for Soph, probably.”

“Eloise wouldn’t come?” Dan asks. He’s been part of a few caretaking teams, briefly, but those were usually with much younger kids and babies.

Phil rolls his lips into a flat line for a moment before shaking his head. “Eloise is...great.”

Phil pauses and Dan takes note of that pause and lets it sit between them while Phil figures out what he wants to say.   
“Eloise is great,” Phil continues, “But she’s really traditional. And we’re...just not a traditional family.”

“She doesn’t support adoption? Gay marriage?”

Dan’s got nothing to lose here by being rude, likely no professional reputation to maintain beyond this visit, and he’s curious. Sophie’s got Phil’s face but she’s also very obviously not white and Dan just has to know. There are always coincidences

“I’m not sure about those,” Phil says easily, ““I’m not married and Sophie isn’t adopted.”

There’s an edge to the way he says the last piece, like he’s trying not to be angry with Dan, but can’t help being angry in general.

“Oh,” Dan says, “Sorry. I just assumed--”  
“Lots of people do,” Phil says, pressing his lips together in a thin line again. “Especially since Margaux passed.”

  
Dan curses internally. He knows himself really well and he knows he loves a tragedy. A gay man with a biological kid is one mystery. A kid with a dead mom is another. He thinks, idly, about what it’d take to sublet a flat he’s just moved into.

“How long have you been...caretaking?” Phil asks, drawing Dan out of his thoughts and reminding him that this was, technically, a job interview.

“You can call it nannying,” Dan says, laughing under his breath a little. “I don’t mind. No weird masculinity issues here. Seven years. Since I was nineteen. I did the au pair thing, briefly, and when I came back home I decided to stick with it. I just left my last family recently.”

Phil nodded, “Bryony told me. She sent me your resume and references.”

Dan hums, “Yep. That’s me.”

Phil glances over to where Sophie is still standing, examining the glass case of sweets. “She’s going to come back with macarons. She’s going through a bit of a phase right now. Do you have hobbies? I know...moving away will mean that we’re in each other’s pockets but, if you take the job, I don’t want you to think your whole life has to be about us. When you’re off, you know.”

Dan stares at Phil for a moment. In his last family, the mother had done all the hiring and the first real thing she’d said to him, sitting in a sleek, steel chair in a painfully modern kitchen, was that she expected him to available to their needs, on call even when he wasn’t there. By the time he left, he’d lost the number of times he’d cut off dinners, dates, even something as simple as showering because someone in the family needed something.

“Dan?” Phil asks.  
“I act,” Dan says, “Um. That’s probably awkward for you, but it's completely different, I do indie and some theater. I swear this isn’t some plot to meet Steven Spielberg.”

Phil laughs, “Well. You didn’t come to me, I came to you, so that’s fine. And he’s a friendly guy, he’d probably like you fine.”

Dan is an actor, and does a decent job of smoothing his facial expressions over. “You know Steven Spielberg?”

“No,” Phil says, and when he laughs his eyes crinkle up and he pokes his tongue out between his teeth.

Dan’s stomach flips, but before he can investigate that feeling, Sophie’s back, with plate of large, brightly colored macarons in one hand and Phil’s change clutched in the other.

“You’re predictable,” Phil tells her, taking the plate so she can settle back in her chair.

“Your mum,” Sophie says, stuffing a whole macaron into her mouth, her cheeks going chipmunk round.

“Sophie!” Phil says, reproving. But Dan’s been around parents long enough to recognize the amused twinkle in Phil’s eye. Jesus, Dan thinks, he loves this kid so much.

  
Sophie shrugs and turns to look at Dan. “How old are you?”

“26,” Dan says. He’s never had kids as old as Sophie, but he figures his tactic for the young ones, to treat them like real people with questionable emotional restraint, will probably suffice.

“Hm,” Sophie says. “Do you like Ariana Grande?”

Dan nods slowly. She perks up.

“Have you ever been to an Ariana Grande concert?”

Dan glances over at Phil who’s groaned and covered his face with a hand.   
“I mean. I personally wouldn’t buy a ticket, but I wouldn’t say no if someone offered.”

“Uh oh,” Phil says quietly.

“Dad,” Sophie says turning to Phil, smacking him on the arm. “Dad, Dad. Hire him. He can take me to the concert before we leave, it's perfect.”

  
“Sophia,” Phil says, patting her back on the shoulder. “Sophie, Soph. That’s not our decision to make.”

Dan raises an eyebrow, watching them bicker. Sophie is charming and wheedling and hilarious and Phil doesn’t do anything but encourage her.

The rest of the meeting goes similarly, Phil will ask a serious question about Dan’s qualifications, even though it feels like he’s just making conversation and Sophie will ask the kind of questions kids ask and Dan does his best to give both of them the level of seriousness they deserve.

When he’s leaving an hour and a half later, his goodbyes turned into promises to see Sophie again as soon as possible, he finds his determination to say no even more shaken.

Sophie is a firecracker, the kind of kid that has grown up in a household that hasn’t ever asked her to be anything less than herself. She’s whip smart for it, sometimes more mature than Dan would expect from a twelve year old, and charming. And Phil is...nice. He’s nice. He’s sometimes tense and he scans the crowd more often than Dan thinks is necessary, but Dan’s also never had to worry about paparazzi following him. Most importantly, though, is that in the two hours Dan spent talking with them, Phil never went cold with Sophie.

Dan’s known a lot of kids, and a lot of parents. He recognizes the look some parents get, the one that says that they wanted a trophies, not children. It's not a look that crossed Phil’s face even once, and it makes Dan think that maybe, maybe he could do this one more time.

But he’d still smiled politely and told Phil that he’d let Bryony know his final decision, careful not to let his feelings show on his face.

 

  
“No fucking way, mate,” Joe says, sitting up from the blanket their sprawled on. It’s a rare Spring day, temperate enough that the four of them can spread out on a patch of park, day drink, and not have to watch anyone’s children to make sure they don’t get attacked by a swan.

Caspar and Fatima look between them, wearing matching expressions of incomprehension.

“I’m not,” Dan says, waving a hand, “I swear. It's Philip Michael. Except he goes by a different name now. And he’s got a kid,”

“Who is Philip Michael?” Caspar asks, because Fatima would rather pretend she’s not interested in the goings-on beside her over admitting that she doesn’t know something.

“Ah, what a fuckin’ bloke,” Joe says, ignoring Caspar’s question, “Must’ve wanked to him a million times when I was a little’un. Those eyes.”

“He’s an actor,” Dan says, ignoring Joe. “He was on a show and some movies a few years ago.”

“He got caught falling out of some club after his last movie, attached to some twink’s face,” Joe adds, “Lucky. He’s filming again?”

“Don’t you have some footie to play? He’s been in a few smaller movies the last couple years.” Dan says, looking between Joe and Caspar. “Also, client confidentiality. Stop asking me things.”

Fatima finally makes a thoughtful noise, grabbing their attention.

“And you’re thinking about taking the job?” she asks, pushing her dark, curly hair away from her neck for a moment. Dan watches her hand.

“I’m...weighing my options,” Dan says. “Thinking through the implications of working for someone who got successes because he got lucky. It’d be kind of a fuck you to the industry, wouldn’t it? To support the come back of another queer that they chewed up and spit out, even if he is one that didn’t deserve to be famous anyway. And, I’ve always wanted to spend time in America.”

Fatima makes another noise, unimpressed this time. “If you go, we’ll see each other. The family is travelling there. The oldest wants to go to college in New York.”

Dan nods. He can hear the things Fatima isn’t saying. That she’ll find a way to see him, no matter where in the country he goes, that he should do this.

“The little girl speaks French,” Dan offers, “I think her mom was French? Her first name is Manon.”

Fatima wrinkles her nose at Dan’s accent, then nods. “We’ll have to meet. Any little French girl should know that life is more than chips and lager.”

Dan can’t help but smile at her, he loves it when Fatima acts as if she’s too French to function in the UK, then tips his face up toward the sun.

“Okay,” Dan says. “Maybe.”

They disperse after another hour or two. They split off and Dan ignores the significant looks he gets from Caspar and Joe when Fatima tells him she’s tired and wants to lie down at his apartment before she goes back to her family.

They don’t say anything of consequence as they walk the few blocks to Dan’s flat until they’re on the lift up to his floor and Fatima sighs.

“Will you show me this new employer Joe loves so much?” she asks

Dan makes a face. “I don’t know if I can watch him without imagining a teenage Joe wanking now.”

“Kinky,” she says, deadpan, and her mouth tilts up into a smile when Dan makes exaggerated gagging noises.

“Fine,” Dan says, as they both get off the lift. “Do you want to…?”

He trails off and she rolls her eyes at him.

“If you’re not old enough to say it,” she says, “You’re not old enough to do it. That’s what I tell the bébés.”

Dan’s the one who rolls his eyes this time, unlocking the door to his flat and stepping aside so she can walk in. She lets a hand drag across his hips and stomach.

“Fatima,” Dan says, knocking the door closed behind him, “Do you want to drink too much wine, maybe split a spliff? Ooh, we could make out until we both remember we’re way too gay for that nonsense? We never get to do that with the boys around.”

Her laugh is low, familiar, and affectionate, and it sounds like a yes. Dan smiles and turns to lock the door.

  
Dan’s phone rings and he groans, reaching towards it without opening his eyes. He runs into Fatima’s side and she grunts sleepily, swatting at his hand.

“Fucking answer,” Dan says, yawning. The low light of oncoming dusk is shining through the closed blinds and his mouth tastes like sour wine and sleep. The phone stops ringing.

“Hullo,” Fatima says, voice thick with sleep. “Oh! Hello, there.”  
She makes brief pleasantries, as if it wasn’t Dan’s phone, and then the phone smacks into Dan’s chest.

“Ow,” Dan says, cross and puts the phone, hopefully right side up, to his face. “Yeah?”

“Hey Dan,” Bryony says. Dan’s eyes pop open. He looks at Fatima, accusatory, but she just shrugs and rolls onto her side, probably falling back asleep immediately.

“Hi Bryony,” Dan says and clears his throat to sound less like he slept through the day. They’re in a weird, liminal space right now, he and Bryony. She’s not exactly his boss, because he hasn’t taken the job yet, but she was his boss for years, even if she was distantly removed by the necessity of running an entire agency.

“I talked to Phil, I heard your chemistry check went well.”

Dan waits and she doesn’t say anything else. Jesus.

“Yeah, yep,” he says, sitting up, “Sophie’s great. She invited me to take her to an Ariana Grande concert.”

Bryony laughs, “She asked me, too. She must have ran out of adults that she knows, now she’s working on friendly strangers.”

Dan laughs and nods, even though Bryony can’t see him. “Yeah. It went really well. I’m...Bryony, to be honest with you, I haven’t made a decision. I was out. After what happened with my last family--”

“Phil wouldn’t do that,” Bryony says quickly, cutting him off. She clears her throat. “I want you to know, Dan. That Phil wouldn’t do that. That family was completely inappropriate with you and I wish you’d told me earlier.”

Fatima makes a terrible noise beside him.

“I didn’t think he would,” Dan says slowly, looking across the room at the large, hanging mirror resting against the wall. When he talks about the last family, or even thinks about them too long, this whole flat feels like hush money.

“But that sort of thing sticks with you,” Bryony says, all defensiveness reigned in and turned to seriousness laced with a shocking amount of care. “I...I know, Dan. And I don’t want you to leave on such a bad note. Phil is a friend, obviously, but he and Sophie are a short, easy job, a favor to me. And then you’re out.”

Dan sighs. “Can I have one more day to think?”

“I’ll call in the morning,” Bryony says, her voice gone bright again.  
That isn’t a full day, but Dan will take it. He thanks her and hangs up.

Fatima immediately turns over to proper herself up on a hand to look at him. She’s wearing one of his shirts, the theif. It's a dress on her. She’d deny ever wearing anything less than silk to her dying day, but she nicks his shirts whenever she’s over for more than a few minutes.

“You’re going to take it, aren’t you?” she asks, rubbing the side of her face. The problem with Fatima, and Dan can’t figure out if it's her Frenchness or just her beguiling, constant motone, but he can’t tell from her voice how she feels about it.

“I’m thinking about it,” Dan tells her.

She snorts.   
“Fatima,” Dan starts.

“Some of us can’t quit,” she says, sitting up fully and turning to get out of the bed. “Some of us don’t get to walk away from our pushy, handsy families and get a designer flat in return.”

“Fatima,” Dan starts. “You were just telling me I should go back to my old family.”

She turns to him, and waits. But there’s nothing to say in the face of her expression. She’s not angry, she looks resigned, and tired.

“Of course I did,” she says, rubbing a hand across her face. For a moment, she’s not the painfully chic nanny of royalty, but a tired twenty-something who’s gotten too good at playing her role. “That’s what we do. We tease and we pretend this is the best job in the world, and we treat the ones that get out that way to cover up how sick with jealousy we are.”

  
In their drunkest moments, when they’re done laughing or dancing or kissing, when Caspar and Joe have fucked off and it's just the two of them, they share stories about their families. They always start with the good ones, the sweet babies that have loved them, the toddlers’ first walks they got the chance to see.

But Dan knows that au pairs don’t get reassigned to new families easy, and pretty foreign girls are expected to just take their treatment silently, whether it's a mother who’s postpartum feelings of powerlessness turn into demanding fury, or a father, so many fathers, who think of hired help as nothing more than prey.

And Fatima knows that Dan’s experience isn’t so different, that families won’t believe a new father making a pass at the male nanny, and that when it comes to reputation or justice, agencies don’t always make the right choice.

Both of them came to Bryony’s agency with histories too long to trust that Bryony would take care of them. But now Dan has a flat purchased by his old family and decorated by people who show up in Best Of... magazines and Fatima has children she cares deeply for and a home she avoids as much as possible.

“Fatima…,” Dan says, “That’s really fucked up. You know that, right?”

Fatima laughs, bitter, and lets herself flop back down onto the bed, turning to tuck her head up against Dan’s chest.

He wraps an arm around her, protective, and thinks of what they could have been to each other, in a different life.

“Take the job,” she says, muffled, her voice buzzing into his chest. “You’ll be in grand-mere’s favour forever and you can vouch for me when I finally snap and burn my family’s house down. Stay in my clutches a little longer.”

Dan huffs a laugh and says, easy, “Okay.”

Anyway, Philip Michael and his little girl could probably use some care from someone who doesn’t go thin-mouthed and reproving or starstruck.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Lupe Fiasco's Superstar.  
> You can find me at queerofcups.tumblr.com


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